I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia (29 page)

But Jim says that he eventually thought, “If I was going to try to make it work with
somebody,
why not try—one last time—to see if it would work with you and me?” Eventually, Jim moved his stuff back upstairs. The crisis, as far as Jim was concerned, seemed to be over, or at least manageable.

Because of that, over time there was the slightest feeling of a truce.
Several weeks, and then months, passed, and eventually Jim and I started talking superficially about household matters: Do you want me to get you anything from the grocery store? Or: If you give me the slip, I’ll pick up the dry cleaning on my way in from work. Or: The washing machine is making a funny noise; can you take a look at it? We started walking the dogs together again in the evenings. During those walks Jim would talk to me about people and incidents at work or relay stories he had heard on public radio during his commute. I would tell him about my classes, pass on conversations I may have had with the boys, and tell stories about Kassidy’s day. It was an uncomfortable situation, to say the least, but on the other hand, our long shared history couldn’t be avoided. Our years of inside jokes, our recognizable quirks and mannerisms, the looks we could give each other sometimes and know exactly what the other person was thinking; all of these things, and more, were impossible to ignore. We started to laugh together again. Although much of what we found funny was in a very black humor sort of way—inappropriate stuff directly having to do with our current situation. We watched movies in the family room together and afterward we would talk about them. I had never before realized exactly how many movies dealt with cheating spouses, strip clubs, and lying.

But regardless of how things looked, my rage continued to be right under the surface. I often took out my anger and frustrations on my unsuspecting people in classes that I subbed at the gym. The littlest things would set me off. If Jim was a half hour late from work, I would think the worst: that he was obviously in bed with someone else. As much as I tried to relax and move forward, I could not. I was constantly grinding my teeth together. I insisted on being on high-alert status all the time in regard to Jim’s
every word and action. I questioned everything he said or did. I was furious with myself for being so incredibly naive for so many years. For me, forgiveness was not an option and I vowed to myself to never be so trusting ever again. Especially where Jim was concerned.

I can remember a time early the following spring. I was out weeding the beds in front of our house and listening to my iPod. (I
hate
weeding—hate gardening of any kind, really—but this was before I had a really great way to procrastinate and be by myself, i.e., Facebook). My iPod was on shuffle, and songs kept coming up that forced me to think about Jim and me. The good stuff and the bad stuff. I listened closely to the lyrics of songs like Jack Johnson’s “Better Together,” Postal Service’s cover of John Lennon’s “Grow Old With Me,” Sting’s “Perfect Love Gone Wrong,” Journey’s “Separate Ways,” Styx’s “The Grand Illusion,” 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up,” and so many others—one right after the other—for hours as I weeded. I was so angry and confused, but all this music somehow made me feel better. At that moment I just wanted to crawl into a hole with my iPod and do nothing but listen to music for the rest of my life. To hell with anything or anyone else!

I had to talk to someone or I felt like I might burst, so I turned to my family and a few close friends. I had long conversations on the phone with my older brother, Rob. I told him on more than a few occasions: “Rob, I just want to push Jim down the stairs. . . . I want Jim to be in a horrible car accident. . . . I wish Jim would get bitten by a poisonous snake while he’s out mowing the lawn. . . .” Because Rob is super hilarious, he is one of the people in my family that was perfect to talk to when I felt obliged to say such preposterous things. And he understood my rage because he
had dealt with troubles in his first marriage. At the same time, Rob is a calm, nonconfrontational kind of person, and although he was always great about listening to my quick-tempered rants, in the end he would usually say something like, “Su, I get it. But you need to take the high road.”

For whatever reason, those particular words stuck with me. I needed to take the high road. I had to be a much better person than Jim would ever have hope of being. I wanted to be able to rise above all of my outrage, hatred, and disgust. But how?

My parents were encouraging me to come and live with them for a time. They told me all about the Horizon Program, a course of study for returning, nontraditional students, at Hollins University, not far from where they live. I drove to Roanoke, and while there, Mom and Dad took me to visit the school. I talked to people at Hollins and had a tour of the beautiful campus. But I didn’t get any kind of “wow!” feeling visiting Hollins, and for whatever reason I just couldn’t see myself there at all.

My sister Diane also invited me to come and stay with her for a while, which tempted me and would have been tons of fun. When Diane and I get together we are just plain silly, laughing about anything and everything. Diane is also an easygoing, comfortable person to be around as well as being a terrific listener. Our phone calls during this time were epic, and they often could last up to three hours. Living with Diane might very well have lifted me out of my pit of rage and helped me to have a new lease on life.

But I couldn’t leave Kassidy during her senior year, and I certainly wasn’t about to uproot her! Plus, I was taking classes at Montgomery College and, given our precarious financial situation, I didn’t really want to just quit and lose all the money I had paid for not only the classes but also the books and supplies. It’s true that I wasn’t
doing very well in those classes because I was, not surprisingly, pretty unfocused. I struggled more than ever with assigned readings, math homework, and essay writing. But there was a new fierce determination in my spirit that hadn’t been there before. I never forgot the extreme anger and contempt that I felt toward Jim. And it somehow fueled me to not give up on myself. Ever. Continuing with my path at Montgomery College became my high road.

—Tom Petty

M
ontgomery College saved my life. That probably sounds superdramatic, but it’s the truth. The people at Montgomery College saved me and gave me a life. Yes. That is probably a truer statement. All that, and they taught me how to love learning. And I guess how to learn how to
learn
—instead of just mimicking. When I was learning everything along with my kids as they went through school, I was mostly copying. Copying is not the same as learning. Not that I didn’t learn stuff from my kids by copying, but the “reason” piece was missing. The “why am I doing this?” part of learning was missing. At Montgomery College, I wasn’t allowed to just copy. I had to show every single step of how I got to
the answer of an algebra problem. I had to write an essay explaining why there were advantages in looking at the world through a sociological lens. I had to give an oral presentation about Susan Graham and explain what the incredible mezzo-soprano contributed to the world of opera. I had to think about and come up with ideas on my own.

It may sound crazy, but I had never really done that before. Sure, I had made decisions about whether Patrick was sick enough to stay home from school, or what party games we could play at Kassidy’s tenth birthday, or whether Benjamin needed new shoes before starting school. I could certainly learn from the decisions I made. For example, Patrick probably should not have gone to school that time he had a temperature of 103 (true story). I learned to take the kids’ temperatures and not just see what they looked like before sending them out the door to the bus. And learning from one’s mistakes is a good way to learn. Lord knows that I learned most of what I know from first making (occasionally disastrous) mistakes. But making those kinds of decisions and mistakes is not the same thing as
learning
new things.

I learned a lot over the years by simply observing what other people did and what other people said, and then doing or saying it myself. But once again, observing somebody doing something or saying something and then doing it or saying it yourself is not exactly the same as learning something. Or at least it shouldn’t be. I still didn’t understand why I did half the stuff I did. I just knew that it was the right thing to do. I didn’t understand why I went to church. But I knew it was the right thing to do in my family. I didn’t know why the kids had to do math packets every summer. But I knew that they had them and they had to be completed by
the first day of school. I didn’t know why I had to make four thousand Christmas cookies every year. But I knew if I didn’t, my family and the neighbors would ask me why I hadn’t made Christmas cookies and I would not have an answer.

But I digress.

The learning I was able to figure out how to do at Montgomery College had everything to do with me. Not in a gross, selfish way, but in a this-professor-is-here-teaching-his-class-today-and-I-am-a-student-here-to-learn way. And that was new. I was the student who was sitting in that class. I was writing down things in my notebook that I thought were important. Nobody was telling me exactly what to write down. If I wanted something clarified, I had to speak up and ask the professor a question. If I didn’t ask, I might never know the answer. I couldn’t depend on other people in the class to have the exact same questions I had. This may all sound very trivial and basic, but to me it was
huge
! I was not only learning subject content, whether it be algebra, music history, sociology, or environmental biology, I was also learning to speak up for myself. Nobody was at college with me, talking for me, answering for me, studying for me, writing for me, doing for me. I did stuff by myself. And I learned I was pretty darn good at this whole learning business. Once I started learning, I just wanted to know more, and more, and more.

But the next fall, Jim said that there was no money for me to continue with school. (Of course there wasn’t.) My parents (again) stepped in and agreed to pay for my education, including all my books, until I graduated from Montgomery College. After that, I was even more determined to do well so as not to disappoint my parents. I still wasn’t quite doing it for myself.

Tests made me nervous because I was always worried I wouldn’t
be able to read or write somehow on the day one was given. Writing papers made me nervous because I still felt like such an amateur when writing them, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. Everyone just assumed that I knew how to research a topic. I didn’t. Kassidy held my hand and walked me baby step by baby step through those first few papers. I learned about the Writing, Reading, and Language Center in the basement of the library right before I graduated. Oh, well.

The professors at Montgomery College were there because they loved to teach. Most of my classes there were smallish, no more than twenty or thirty students, some much smaller, and the professors knew the names of their students just a week or two into each semester. The professors were happy to help in whatever way they could. They wanted students to be successful. I don’t know why, but I was continually amazed by that fact. Sharon Ward was my environmental biology professor my very last semester before graduating. There was one unit where we had to know how to balance simple equations. I had no idea what that meant or how to do it. Kassidy had enrolled at Barnard College in New York City at this point, so I couldn’t ask her for help. I went and talked to Professor Ward and explained that I had never done any of this equation-balancing business before. She sat with me in her office for nearly an hour right then and there and taught me how to balance equations. Professor Bill Coe was my teacher for both pre-algebra and Algebra I. He could probably teach math to a rock, I’m not kidding, and he spent so much extra time with me trying to explain in varied and differing ways how to factor equations. Professor Coe figured out that my basic issue with factoring was that I did not yet know all my multiplication tables automatically. These are just two of the many examples of Montgomery College professors
going above and beyond any typical teaching duties, and I will always be eternally grateful for all of the time they gave to me.

But one of the most important things I learned from my professors at Montgomery College was to be honest about who I was and what I had been through. I met Professor Sue Adler at the Awards Assembly for Phi Theta Kappa, the honor society for two-year colleges, in the spring of 2008. She mentioned during that assembly that she was the faculty adviser for Phi Theta Kappa, and that students would have the opportunity to interview with her if they were interested in becoming Phi Theta Kappa officers for the 2008–2009 school year. Since I was newly inducted into Phi Theta Kappa, I was feeling smart and courageous. I knew those feelings wouldn’t last long, so I spoke to Sue during the reception following the assembly, thinking that she would ask me to make an appointment with her. Instead, she said, “Great! Write down your name, phone number and e-mail for me and I’ll contact you as to when our first planning meeting will be during the summer.” I guess I was in. That was certainly easy. I loved being part of the Phi Theta Kappa board, and I grew to love Sue Adler and the other faculty adviser, Brian Baick. Sue is one of those people who only surround themselves with other practical and hardworking people. She knows everything about Montgomery College and everyone who has anything to do with the school. She and her husband, Bill, a retired MC professor, are both full of energy and positivity.